On a serious note, I won't even begin to take credit for this thought, but I read someone mention on Twitter on how Bradford is about to become the poster boy for a reason why their should be rookie salary cap and how unfair that is to him for just being the last partipatent in system that the owners started to create from themselves. Do I agree with the contract length/amount.. HECK NO!!! but he's about to vilified when all he did was do what every other rookies, especially QB have done before him. Finally, Charles Robinson for Yahoo Sports said it well.."Contracts handled by Tom Condon & Ben Dogra (including Bradford & McCoy) R mind-blowing. They embarrassed teams in negotiations this year."

FPL: 15 comments can save you 15 minutes or more of embarrassing yourself on a bar discussion

I dont blame Bradford for taking the money, I dont blame the greedy agents for pushing for the maximum deal, and I dont blame the veterans in the league for being totally against giving rooks all this money.....I'm just hope they can get this corrected sooner than later and we wont hav to miss any football next year

"Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next."

I think it was Florio who suggested that in addition to the rookie salary cap, there should be a league-wide 'incentive pool' to pay extra payments to first-contract rookies who perform well on the field. Set benchmarks of performance for each position (TDs thrown, sacks, receptions, tackles, etc.) and tie a dollar value to each benchmark. Players who meet or exceed the level will get an incentive payment that does not count against the team's salary cap. The teams could also include performance escalators in the player's contract, which could be calibrated to offset any 'incentive pool' payment. The most obvious poster guy for an 'incentive pool' is Chris Johnson of the Titans. I would think that his performance last year would easily have qualified for a $2-3 million dollar incentive payment from a league pool. The 'incentive pool' would be funded by overall league revenue and would be a certain percentage of that revenue. Incentive pool money not awarded would carry over to the next year.

I would also take the money previously paid to unproven 1st round players and use it to raise the minimum salaries for lower round draft picks. I would also kick over some of the money to veteran player salaries, and some to retired players as well. My point is to not just give this money back to the owners-make sure that the money paid is the same, but spread it around to other players.